The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss

Dahlia Moss is billed as WOW meets Veronica Mars, and honestly, that's pretty apt, sans the hard exterior. I found the fast-paced mystery enjoyable. Wirestone is heavy on the allusions – I can imagine the book is almost illegible to people who aren't part of at least one fandom – but he draws from a pretty diverse pool, so it's not like you have to specifically play MMORPGs to find it enjoyable. Besides the general geekery, I found the mystery well-built, with some nice clues, some nice distractors and overall good pacing. The characters were all pretty shallowly depicted, but each was quirky and fun.

I thought where the story showed some depth was in exploring the ways in which Dahlia had separated herself off from a social life when life didn't turn out how she planned, and how she managed to find her way back to having friends and accepting herself how she was. I think it's a pretty universal story of the mid-20's and this is one of the most honest depictions I've seen.

It's imperfect: some of the allusions felt a little forced and the witty repartee felt a little on the nose, but overall, I found it a completely enjoyable, fast romp (I read nearly the entire thing over the course of a 90 minute flight) and I'll probably read the next books in the series.